Elected
Charles VI was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned in Frankfurt on December 22.
The imperial election of 1711 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place on October 12.
On December 17, 1692, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor created the Electorate of Hanover and the Lutheran Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, prince of Calenberg, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and prince-bishop of Osnabrück its prince-elector. The Imperial Diet did not immediately ratify his choice. Ernest Augustus would die on January 23, 1698 and be succeeded by his son who later became George I of Great Britain.
In 1697, Frederick Augustus I, elector of Saxony, converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism as a prerequisite in his campaign to be elected king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, Lutheranism remained the state church of Saxony.
On October 3, 1700, weeks before his death, the childless and severely disabled Charles II of Spain as heir to the entire Spanish Empire the French prince Philippe, Duke of Anjou, his sister's grandson and the grandson of King Louis XIV of France. The possession by the House of Bourbon of both the French and Spanish thrones threatened the balance of power in Europe. England, Austria, and the Dutch Republic, fearing this threat, resurrected the Grand Alliance in support of the claim of the fifteen-year-old Charles, Emperor Leopold's younger son. Leopold had married another sister of Charles II in 1666, and in 1685 their daughter had surrendered her right to the Spanish throne to Charles, who was Leopold's son from a later marriage. The first hostilities of the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in June 1701. The Grand Alliance declared war on France in May 1702.
That same year, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, and his brother Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne, joined France in support of Philip's claim to the Spanish succession. They were quickly forced into flight and were deprived of their electorates by the Imperial Diet in 1706.
In 1708, to compensate for the absence of the electors of Bavaria and Cologne, the Imperial Diet ratified the admission of Brunswick-Lüneburg to the Electoral College and called for the king of Bohemia to join the proceedings, from which he and his predecessors had abstained in the elections of 1653, 1658 and 1690.
Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor died of smallpox on April 17, 1711. The prince-electors called to elect his successor were:
Of these, the electors of Brandenburg and Hanover were the sole Protestants.
Charles VI was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He was crowned in Frankfurt on December 22.
The prince-electors, pl. Kurfürsten, Czech: Kurfiřt, Latin: Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Frederick I, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg (1688–1713) and Duke of Prussia in personal union (Brandenburg-Prussia). The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia (1701–1713). From 1707 he was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.
Leopold I was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain, Leopold became heir apparent in 1654 after the death of his elder brother Ferdinand IV. Elected in 1658, Leopold ruled the Holy Roman Empire until his death in 1705, becoming the second longest-ruling Habsburg emperor. He was both a composer and considerable patron of music.
The House of Welf is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Moselle area was closely related to the imperial family of the Carolingians.
The Pragmatic Sanction was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, on 19 April 1713 to ensure that the Habsburg monarchy, which included the Archduchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Netherlands, could be inherited by a daughter undivided.
The Schmalkaldic War was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, commanded by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Saxony, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League within the domains of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Electorate of Hanover was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. For most of its existence, the electorate was ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland following the Hanoverian Succession.
Louis Rudolph, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruling Prince of Wolfenbüttel from 1731 until his death. Since 1707, he ruled as an immediate Prince of Blankenburg.
On 19 April 1529, six princes and representatives of 14 Imperial Free Cities petitioned the Imperial Diet at Speyer against an imperial ban of Martin Luther, as well as the proscription of his works and teachings, and called for the unhindered spread of the evangelical faith.
Over its long history, the Holy Roman Empire used many different heraldic forms, representing its numerous internal divisions.
The Imperial Diet was the deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not a legislative body in the contemporary sense; its members envisioned it more like a central forum where it was more important to negotiate than to decide.
An imperial election was held in Regensburg on 28 November 1562 to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The imperial election of 1653 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Augsburg on May 31.
The imperial election of 1690 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Augsburg on January 23.
The imperial election of 1742 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on January 24. The result was the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria, the first non-Habsburg emperor in hundreds of years.
The imperial election of 1745 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on September 13.
The imperial election of 1764 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 27 March.
The imperial election of 1790 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 30 September.
The imperial election of 1792 was the final imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 5 July.
